urbanMSP

Step 1: Inform commuters of little-known Virginia Avenue crossing.
Step 2: Tell residents of that area you did this because of the ongoing resistance to the Dakota / Edgewood connection.
Step 3: Pop the popcorn.

Heh.

I never would've known it, but Texas>28th>Virginia>Cedar Lk Rd>Texas actually looks like a pretty functional (if secret) North-South route through most of St. Louis Park. Not super useful with Louisiana right there, but another option for those on the west side, for sure.

Would the Dakota-Edgewood connection really be that valuable? It is just 1/2-mile east of Louisiana Av. For sure there should be a ped-bike connection on that longitude. If there were a need for another N-S collector street, I'd think the demand would be further east / closer to 100. The Dakota-Edgewood connection, honestly, sounds like a reliever to Louisiana more than anything else. Is Louisiana super congested or something?

Louisiana is sometimes looked at as above capacity being a mostly two lane road, during rush hours it is already tough carrying about 17,000 daily. The city looked at widening Louisana to four lanes back in the eighties. Residents went nuclear because it would have needed to shave off front yards to do it. With 100 closed Louisiana carries even more. A Dakota-Edgewood link would relieve Louisiana's normal congestion, and especially when 100 is out of commission. But would it ever carry enough to be worth the cost? Uhhhhh. Probably why it never did get built, Louisiana just barely works on tough normal days. You don't build for the once in a generation need. That way lies bankruptcy.

At the least, a Dakota Edgewood link would be a safer cyclist connection than Louisiana. That's terrifying seeing kids bike that.

I feel for the city being in lockdown, but their complaints to MnDOT seem to be a way to go back to constituents and say, "See! It's their fault!" I don't know how adding traffic lights will help with 3/4 mile backups. And MnDOT can't exactly wish new connections into place.

St. Louis Park is so strange in that it's a fairly urban suburb, but it's so ridiculously disconnected and relies on a relative few number of collectors. They're just going to have to live with carpocalypse for a while.

How about a Cedar Lake road link while we're at it.

How about a Cedar Lake road link while we're at it.

It wasn't a very bright idea to have only 100, 169, and Louisiana as the only major thoroughfares traveling N/S to cross the tracks. It just forces everyone further west in order to get to places when 100 is shut down.

There used to be a bridge over the railroad at Cedar Lake Rd. Not sure when it was replaced with the existing foot bridge, but a rough guess based on when the road was dropped as a county state aid route is sometime in the mid 1970s.

Earlier. I think it was between the mid 50s and mid 60s, because by 1966 it's gone in aerial photos.

MNDOT's response for the detour congestion.

http://sailor.mnsun.com/2015/04/22/mndo ... ouis-park/

Minnetonka Blvd bridge opens Oct. 8th.
TH 7 bridge closed Oct. 10th.

https://m.facebook.com/stlouispark/post ... 2928531584

I drove west bound on hwy 7 from the Wooddale bridge last night around 5:00 and the traffic heading east was backed up past Louisiana. All of that was getting compressed to a single lane which had to exit southbound on Wooddale. What a mess. I guess it's going to take a few days for people to realize that hwy 7 is closed at 100 and adjust their route.

Yeah... Excelsior Blvd eastbound in the am has gotten bad back ups already with the Louisiana detour too. I'm going to be shifting my route over to Interlachan now.

We knew 7 getting closed would be tough. Here we are.

Here's a fun detour for the bike trail while the bridge is out, routing cyclists onto Highway 7 for a short stretch: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/metro/projec ... ikemap.pdf This portion of Highway 7 is closed to vehicles though, so don't worry!

Here's the detailed timeline for the remainder of this massive project, set to wrap up this fall: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/metro/projects/hwy100slp/

Finally the light is at the end of the tunnel on Hwy 100 and Hwy 7. After a closure this weekend there will be 2 lanes north and south on the proper sides under the Hwy 7 bridge. Exit and entrance ramps to be finished throughout the next week or so after that.
The St. Louis Park website shows a celebration of the projects completion on November 3rd.

The TH7/TH100 interchange is fully open now. Seems 100 will still be reduced to 2 lanes in each direction while the barrier and other finishing details are completed.

I was already nearly sideswiped by a driver getting familiar with the new layout of the ramps making a last minute swerve to get in the correct lane. Let the learning curve commence.

Still it is a huge improvement. The cynical take is that it was $68 million for adding a lane each direction on 1 mile of highway.

The Hwy 100 lane reduction is supposed to last into "mid-November". We'll see!
I'm excited for traffic to return to normal... at least until January.

As a long time resident of Saint Louis Park living with the bottleneck at TH 7 is a fact. Now that the $80M 1-mile lane addition is completed a few years now I think it’s pretty wild how congestion is back like before.

Maybe the rush hour clog is shortened a bit. I can’t tell.

As a long time resident of Saint Louis Park living with the bottleneck at TH 7 is a fact. Now that the $80M 1-mile lane addition is completed a few years now I think it’s pretty wild how congestion is back like before.

It was great for a brief time after it was finished, but as soon as they started tearing up 35W it was back to the same old back up. It was like a cruel joke to put up with the construction for so long with the promise of relief at the end, only to do another major highway project right on the heels which was going to certainly impact traffic on hwy100 again.
Don't you think it will lighten up a bit once the 35W project is finished?

As a long time resident of Saint Louis Park living with the bottleneck at TH 7 is a fact. Now that the $80M 1-mile lane addition is completed a few years now I think it’s pretty wild how congestion is back like before.

It was great for a brief time after it was finished, but as soon as they started tearing up 35W it was back to the same old back up. It was like a cruel joke to put up with the construction for so long with the promise of relief at the end, only to do another major highway project right on the heels which was going to certainly impact traffic on hwy100 again.
Don't you think it will lighten up a bit once the 35W project is finished?

Isn't there always some big project going on that will impact the other nearby freeways?